Last week when I ranted about Marvel's extra ad pages I mentioned without explaining a process that I call de-boning. So what exactly is de-boning?
You know how your magazines usually come with one or two (or more) cardstock inserts (usually subscription cards) that bridge the saddle? I find it very hard to read with that cardstock flopping up, so I tear them out.
I do the same thing to my comics, and not just the occasional cardstock insert. I take out those bound-in eight-page advertainment comic-like things too.
When DC adds extra ad pages, it's usually in the form of an extra four-page signature that's bound in; it quite often is of a slightly different paper quality, and you can tell by the fact that each of the four pages has an ad. I rip those out too. I can slim a DC comic down to its natural 32-page size.
One of the reason why I hate it when Marvel adds extra ad pages is that hey do it in such a way that you can't be-done the comic without tearing out story pages; a sheet will have three ad pages and one story page on it. Boo.
I know that some people would be shocked and horrified at this, as the comic is no longer near-mint or whatever. I decided that I don't really care; I buy comics for reading, not collecting, and it's easier to read without extra ads in the way.
So, after that long explanation, my Yet Another Friday Question to you is this:
Do you de-bone your comics?
6 comments:
I don't de-bone, but for the same reason - I'm a reader and not a collector. So after I'm done with most that I don't consider keepers, I resell them - hence the need to keep them "near mint".
As long as it doesn't damage the rest of the book I don't mind. I have seen one friend tear out the centre ad pages with aggression in front of another, hardcore collector friend, who was horrified. Pretty funny.
I debone them when they interfere with the physical spreading of pages. But I greatly admire your "God will know his own" strategy. Rip the bastards out, I say! If leaving intrusive advertising in equates to "mint", I say let's have no more mint!
I don't actually have the energy to do it your way. I have to save up my quixotic spirit for brief every-two-years eruptions.
In the 1980s I bought a large pile of 1970s DCs, which had originally been printed so that all the ads were on separate sheets from the actual comics stories, even though they were interleaved. The previous owner had carefully removed the staples, lifted out the ad sheets and reassembled and restapled the comics without them. He or she had done it so carefully that it took me a while to realise what was different.
No interruptions to the story, and only half the space needed in the long box: brilliant! But I've never had the nerve to do it myself, because Im too cack-handed.
NO I don't, but I understand your point. I occasionally resell something, especially if it's "hot" or whatever (usually to buy something better, like a copy of Thor 177 or something.
YES!
As close as I can get to an ad-free book, I will do it. Even if it means tearing out pages, so long as I'm not losing actual content.
This probably doesn't hue to traditional values, but some of the ads they put in these books -especially the big two- are so atrocious, I almost take a sick pleasure taking them out.
I've done the same as Steve Flanagan and removed ad pages from 70's comics, without removing a single page of art. Yet another reason to love 70's comics.
Love the new verb, incidentally.
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